


Sugar Coating

by Melkur_Mistress



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13 is too nice, Doctor/Master history, F/F, Fluff, Nostalgia, massive fluff basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 20:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20784953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melkur_Mistress/pseuds/Melkur_Mistress
Summary: She sat on the floor, surrounded by parts of a component from the console - the Doctor wondered whether she was tempting fate - but then, what right did she have to deliberately prevent her from regaining her memories. She was her oldest friend, over lifetimes they had fought, married, loved, lost, seen each other at the end of lives and reborn anew. Her friend, her husband, her lover, her enemy - beautiful and chaotic and clever and extremely, very extremely dangerous.





	Sugar Coating

**Author's Note:**

> This is fluff all the way and ends with happiness. I don't use a beta and have written this fic as an immersion to make a dark day brighter.

  
_ “She prefers to remain in her room - usually drawing, sometimes she shuts down like this, but she doesn’t speak to us.” _

_ The Doctor frowned, watching the motionless form of her friend on the hospital bed. An earth hospital bed. She had so many questions. _ _ Instead she stepped around the bed, pulling up a chair and sitting beside Missy, reaching out slowly to smooth her hair back from her face. _

_ “Hey,” she said with a smile. “There you are. Wondered what you were up to - what are you doing here?” _

_ When Missy gave no response, she sighed and turned to the hospital Doctor. _

_ “What happened to her?” _

**Northampton, England, Earth. 2019.**

The Doctor quickly impressed the medical staff in charge of her friend, dismissing their concerns when she pointed her sonic at the screen containing Missy’s medical notes, and turning to them.

“Coma, no sign of head injury though? Only injury is what you describe as a radiation burn to her back.”

“You’re a Doctor?”

“Yes, I am, among other things, and her next of kin - able to make medical decisions if she is unable - check the notes,” the Doctor said as she flashed her sonic paper, showing them identification as they scrolled the notes, frowning.

“I wasn’t aware that a next of kin had been located, my apologies.”

“I forgive you. Tell me how she came to be here.”

“Well, she was picked up by paramedics outside of a museum - as you know, radiation burns to her lower back, few bruises, but no other injuries of any note, someone else's blood on her hands though. No apparent head injury but substantial amnesia. Police tried to talk to her but her mental state hasn’t made that possible. They swabbed her, but the blood on her hands didn’t match any recorded samples on their files, and she isn’t communicative, so she is in our care. Three days ago she slipped into what can only be described as a coma.”

“Well as her next of kin, and a Doctor myself, I can certainly take over her care from here,” the Doctor smiled.

“The police, I am sure would want an address for her...”

“That was all updated earlier,” the Doctor said with a smile, having hacked their records moments earlier.

After a little hesitation, the consultant accepted the story and talked through the medication they were giving Missy - handing the Doctor multiple prescriptions.The Doctor took them all with a smile, signing forms, and mentally calculating how long it would take to get all of the human medication out of her friends system and whether it had done her any damage.

“Oh, just one thing - did you do any tests - blood tests, x rays, that sort of thing?”

“Well, just the usual, her blood pressure is a concern, but we have her on medication to stabilise that. X rays weren’t needed, no obvious fractures, blood tests - came back with errors, repeated...well, it looks like we didn’t follow that up, we could before you leave?”

“No, no, that's fine, I can take care of anything she needs,” the Doctor smiled.

She really didn't want to delay, so allowed the orderlies to push Missy’s bed toward her waiting ambulance. The chameleon circuit, when she chose to use it, could usually provide a useful function at times. She smiled as she asked them to lift Missy onto her own bed, and thanked them, waving them away. Wheeling her inside, she dematerialised and took her to her medical room. 

She put the chameleon circuit back to her usual exterior, feeling a certain comfort at the familiar police box and then settled Missy in, checking her over and reading blood levels and brain activity. She held up the printed list of medication and shook her head.

“Oh Missy, they really didn’t know what to do with you, did they? We’re lucky they didn’t do more damage than they have. Don’t worry, I’ll get you back to normal.”

Days passed before Missy woke from her coma; confused by her new surroundings. The Doctor had smiled warmly at her, hoping that the harmful human medication would have left her system and brought her back to herself, but the blank look in Missy’s eyes told her otherwise.

They talked, Missy at first just listening, before asking tentative questions about where she was, how long she had been there, who the Doctor was, and most alarmingly...who she herself was.

The Doctor answered patiently and with increasing gentleness, realising to her dismay that Missy really did have substantial amnesia. Human medicine she presumed - if she had been disoriented when they found her, and suffering from an injury, then pumping her full of human medication would only have worsened her condition, and fast. She wondered just how long Missy would remain with the confused, vulnerable look in her eyes - she felt a desperate pang as she watched her and wondered when her friend would come back to her.

Days turned into weeks, and Missy was settled into her own room, choosing to keep things very sparse and adding no personal touches at all. The Doctor wished that she would do something, _anything_ really to remind her that Missy was still in there, but she resolved in time to the fact that she may have a long and seemingly impossible road ahead, and if that were the case, she promised herself and Missy, that she would take care of her.

**Two months later.**

The Doctor watched her, guilt flooding through her as she meticulously followed the printed instructions she had given her. She sat on the floor, surrounded by parts of a component from the console - the Doctor wondered whether she was tempting fate - but then, what right did she have to deliberately prevent her from regaining her memories. She was her oldest friend, over lifetimes they had fought, married, loved, lost, seen each other at the end of lives and reborn anew. Her friend, her husband, her lover, her enemy - beautiful and chaotic and clever and extremely, very extremely dangerous.

“I had a dream last night,” Missy said, her words a passing thought as she focused on the task in front of her.

“Oh?” the Doctor said, feeling instantly tense. “Memories?”

“No,” Missy scoffed. “I’m a blank slate….you took me in, you held me, you were so affectionate...you know me well. Yet you don't tell me who I am. Please - it would help if I knew. Why won't you tell me?”

“How would you know if they are your memories or just what I’ve told you?”

Missy sighed and focused on her task.

“Tell me a story then, a story about us. Then maybe the blanks will fill in and I’ll start to remember."

“What do you want to know?” the Doctor asked,

“How did we first meet?”

“There doesn’t feel time that we didn't know each other,” the Doctor said with a grin. I barely remember a moment before we did. Our childhoods, our studies, our plans - we were always together. We ran through the fields, childish games at first, but we were thick as thieves - we grew, we faced challenges, but whatever directions we were pulled in - we knew we both had a home in each others hearts.”

“Besties then?” Missy asked, clicking the final piece back in the panel and looking triumphant.

“Well done, you’re doing that faster - yeah, best mates,” the Doctor said with a smile.

As Missy continued the Doctor could not help but notice how fast her skill had increased in the past week that they had been working on the TARDIS components together. It gave her hope in some ways, that Missy was regaining some of herself, but also left a feeling of concern at the back of the Doctor’s mind. Her last memory was Missy leaving, walking away from her to some complicated plan no doubt involving her past herself. She had felt the blade, but what that meant - she could only assume, and there was nothing more to do - she had let her walk away. What happened next she had no clue - no clue at all if Missy had left with him, or killed him and then left, taking his TARDIS - either option felt like she had fallen from the goodness she had spent over seventy years trying to obtain. 

The Doctor sighed, putting out all thoughts that her friend might have returned to her evil ways as she handed her a glowing cable.

“So we grew up, then what?” Missy asked distractedly as she tried to work out where the cable belonged,

“I could tell you - it's a long story, we’ve both lived a very long time. Comfy?”

Missy glanced at the tools scattered around her in a far more haphazard manner than she would ever have approached her work normally, and shrugged.

“Comfy as a cushion, what were we like when we grew up and away from our families?”

“You just became cleverer. I always admired that about you - things come more naturally to you - faster. I always had to study that bit harder. I...left, sort of ran.”

“From me?” Missy asked, her expression curious as she examined a wire she had pulled from the console.

“No, from our home planet, from bureaucracy and feeling stifled and...well maybe you, a little.”

“You can’t run from someone a little, that would be walking quickly - and if you walk quickly you get caught. So you ran. What did I do that made you run?”

“It wasn’t solely you,” the Doctor sighed and sat down, pulling out another cable and using her sonic to make an adjustment.

“I could hardly have been enough for you to stay though,” Missy said, glancing at her with the blank undercurrent that the Doctor had become a little too used to seeing since she had found her again in this state.

“We had this pact - we were going to travel, but you didn’t seem to want to see the universe anymore, not in the same way. Your plans became more about...controlling things, and your methods just became colder. I felt so far from you at that point, that I didn’t think there was any reason left to stay.”

“Could've tried?” Missy asked, shaking her hand and whispering an ‘ouch’ as the circuit gave a small flash.

“Careful, you ok?”

“Yeah, go on - I wasn't enough for you, got it.”

“No, no Missy, that’s not it,” the Doctor closed her eyes and gave a sigh. “I missed you every second.”

“Yet you still left?”

“Yeah, yeah I did,” the Doctor replied sadly.

“So...did I grow up to be some kind of coldhearted bad guy then?” Missy asked with a slight laugh, falling flat as she saw the Doctors worried expression.

“_ Did _ I?” Missy asked. “Did I become worse than the person you ran from?”

“You...no, I loved you, I always did and always will. You just...you went in a very different direction to me and…”

“I’m a bad person?” Missy asked, with a flash of dismay.

“You...no, no you’re not. You’re really not.”

“Tell me then. Tell me more about me and give me something because right now I’m not sure I like myself.”

“You are very likeable - I mean not everyone does...but I like you a whole lot.”

“Why would people dislike me? Am I some kind of politician?”

The Doctor laughed and shook her head, “well, no...except there was this one time...or more...but no, you are...sort of your own boss. Doing your own thing. Just your methods and your plans...sometimes..are a little...not all that nice.”

“I’m not nice?” Missy looked surprised as she stared at the Doctor. “_ Am _ I a bad person?”

The Doctor felt a flash of regret at the dismay on Missy’s face and immediately made a decision...her friend simply had lost herself and clearly needed reassurance, so right or wrong, she simply wanted to see her smile again.

“Once, you, made an ingenious device - rather unpleasant...a sort of hideous monument to your skill. Used it to leave...surprises in amusing places.”

“Sounds awful! What exactly am I?”

“Awful...yes ...but you’re not...not a bad person. Missy, you stayed with me when I was stuck somewhere though - you could have left. You...brought me flowers, lots of flowers - daffodils. And surprises, a lot of big surprises. You made sure I didn't get bored or complacent. Sometimes you sort of disguised yourself - to make the surprises...more interesting. You had such big plans for us.”

“Did we do them? These big plans?”

“No, not as such. Your ideas were not always the same as mine, but we always had an affection for each other - and we had our moments. _Oh_ we had our moments Missy. Plenty when I was stuck in the place that I was - I liked it, but to be stuck, forced to remain, that’s not so fun. You weren't, but you still stuck around. You called me on the phone - brought me flowers, made sure I didn't get bored. Even made sure my friends didn't get bored.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“Yes - you..would have given me the universe..well,” the Doctor mumbled. “Half the universe.”

“So we were a couple then?”

“Yes, yes we were,” the Doctor said with a smile.

“We lived happily ever after? I’m guessing no.”

“Well...You had a difficult time- almost died - I suppose you could say it was a long recovery. You were in pain, and angry. I can’t blame you, but you helped yourself, you worked long and hard to hold onto yourself, and you surprised me again. Always thinking of me, even in our darkest moments.”

“You seem to be someone that I want to spend a whole lot of time thinking about,” Missy said, a flash of warmth in her eyes as she smiled.

“I’m glad, because I think about you a lot too,” the Doctor said, and for a brief moment they both smiled at each other with considerable warmth before Missy turned her focus back to the cabling and turned around slightly, pulling another one free and glancing at the diagram to reroute it.

“Trouble is...you took something precious and important from a friend of mine, that was difficult for all of us, but you worked with me to undo a mistake, I suppose there was little choice, but it was good to work together again. I always missed that. You were there though a lot of changes in my life - you could say lifetimes. You were always there - once you just seemed to pop in and see me. You didn’t have any real reason to be there. Just dropping by and keeping an eye on me. You always looked in, however far way you were.” 

The Doctor felt a flash of guilt that was quickly smothered by happiness at the way Missy smiled.

“I went through some changes...you were still there, still with that precious and important thing you stole...but still I looked at you and tried to fight how much I loved you, because I felt it would consume me, or _you_ would, or both.”

Missy successfully rerouted the cable and gave a proud smile that the Doctor thought was absolutely adorable.

“Brilliant, you’re starting to memorise these instruction sheets really fast.”

“You did say I was clever,” Missy said with a big smile.

The Doctor could only return her smile, but it was quickly replaced by sadness.

“You had an accident one - of the most bizarre kind - eventually you found a way to fix your...problem. But we had this game, over the years. A stupid game because it sometimes resulted in...well, I took a gamble, with you - the man I loved. I stood and watched as you ...as you apparently died...burned, you always...you live Missy, and I knew that, but once you had gone...I felt sick that maybe this time…”

“Ow!” Missy flinched as a flash from the cable sent a jolt through her, blinking, she was still for several minutes while the Doctor checked her over and frowned at the cabling.

“Sorry, that shouldn't have happened - feeling ok?”

Missy remained silent momentarily and then looked up, meeting the Doctor's eyes with a steady gaze.

“Yes, I’m ok. Slight headache. You were telling me a lovely story...and then you got to the part where you watched me burn, I don't think I like this story. I think you’d tell awful bedtime stories.”

“Sorry, perhaps maybe, even after all these years, I still feel that fear, and guilt. Anyway, cats!”

“Cats?” Missy asked.

“Yes, big ones. We were both stuck somewhere once, a dying world, and you found a way to get back and forth - always ingenious - but it wasn’t a good place for us, you made the best of it though, took control of the situation. Then we fought a little - so many times I've worried that I wont see you again, yet I always do. Perhaps that makes me complacent, less reactive than I should be. I just...depended on that fact - the universe makes sense if you’re in it So how can you not be? If such a big part of my world wasn't there. Things wouldn't be right anymore.”

“So I'm a take charge kind of gal?”

“Oh yes, yes you are,” the Doctor said with a smile that exuded fondness. 

“I thought you were dead, again, but you found a way, as always. When I saw you next ...you tortured me you tried to...well let’s say you wanted my body and not for the first time.”

Missy burst into laughter and her eyes filled with a warmth and humour that the Doctor felt taken aback to see after seeing her expression blank for so long.

“Well, I wasn’t going to be so base, but your body is quite nice Doctor,” Missy laughed.

“Thanks, yours too,” the Doctor said, meeting her eyes with equal warmth and laughter.

“Did I_ get_ your body then?” Missy asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

“No, and for a while...I thought I was truly alone in this universe, but then, I found you again. 

You were your usual brilliant self again, morally questionable ...but oh so brilliant.”

“Oh ...morally questionable? Hope I was...nice?” Missy said.

“Oh, honey you ...it _ was _ good to see you again…but then...much like now, when I met you next - you had forgotten who you were again. We worked on your project - you were doing something wonderful - something to help people, I delighted in your work - so impressive, so brilliant. So driven.”

“Not so bad then? That’s a relief,” Missy said. “Did I still want your body”?

The Doctor laughed, “probably. Then you...remembered who you were, and you took something of mine. You turned your work around in a bad…”

Missy looked worried…casting the Doctor a strange expression, she almost would have called it guilt, but frowned, taking it instead as concern.

“We….. spent a whole year together, there was music, you danced, but you left me again. I thought you would never come back. My hearts shattered. Utterly, totally shattered. I felt broken and lost and alone. I don’t...know what my life would be…..without you Missy.”

Missy looked down at her circuits, laying discarded in her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I think that maybe...I went too far.”

“Oh hey, it’s ok, you’re here now…” the Doctor said, hesitating for a moment, then shaking off the strange feeling that was creeping up on her.

“You did though, defying the odds, defying probability and likelihood - you came back. Oh you were clever - I suppose you...wanted to make sure you experienced everything you could - in every way, every place - I told you how brilliant you were. Told you I wanted to travel with you. Oh I had missed you, so very much.”

“I bet,” Missy said with a quiet voice, “that I had really missed you too. You...seem like the kind of person I would do anything for.”

The Doctor paused, and then took her hand, squeezing slightly as she tried to make eye contact with her again.

“I wanted to travel with you - experience everything this universe has to offer, and share that with you - like I always wanted, like we both wanted a long time ago. You ...helped me, you…...I…....but then you went on a trip. Back home actually.”

“Home? Where is home?” Missy asked, looking up and steadily holding the Doctors gaze.

“It’s….” she paused, noticing the quizzical look Missy wore, “called Gallifrey…”

“Oh, sounds nice, What’s is it like?”

“There are the fields of red grass we ran together in when we were children, and so many bright, amazing minds…”.

“Sounds lovely,” Missy said.

“It….maybe I should check you over again, make sure you didn’t get hurt.”

“No, no, I’m fine. Go on - Gallifrey is lovely?”

“It’s not...and it is….it’s complicated.”

“Are there more parts about us wanting each others bodies?”

The Doctor laughed and felt herself instinctively moving closer, resting her head on Missy’s shoulder.

“Next time I saw you, you had a surprise for me - you stopped by for my birthday. Your present...well, I give you one thing, you do put time and effort into gifts.”

Missy smiled broadly and kissed the Doctors head.

“Yes! Yes I do! I seem like the kind of person who would really appreciate that kind of...acknowledgement from...well, you.”

The Doctor smiled and traced her thumb in small circles on Missy’s hand.

“I sent you a message sometime later - you came to me, because of course you did. Wouldn’t we both always - you went too far...and I regret leaving without you. You never did tell me what happened after that - but you ended up, eventually...in some trouble. But I helped you, and then we...lived together for a long time.” 

“We did? Sounds like that was a long time coming. _ Lived together _ did we?”

“Yeah...well no. But I do...do regret leaving you like I did. I always told you it didn’t matter what you had done, deciding to change, that point forward was all that mattered. I didn’t need the details, you would share them in time, but you didn’t...it was a long process I suppose and we didn’t get there before things...changed.”

“So we lived together, but we didn’t. Were we both happy?”

“Happy? Yes. No. I could’ve done things...better...different I suppose. I did what I thought was right, neither of us really knew how to do that. In time we grew comfortable, I baked you cakes and we played chess a lot, you usually won and when you didn't I'm sure you let me win so I wouldn't stop playing with you. You...wanted to be a better person, you worked hard at that some days - not at all others, but you _ tried _ and you made a lot of progress. I regret...some things from that time, but being close to you...I craved it. I was close yet distant though- I regret that I hurt you that way...with that distance.”

“Distance,” Missy whispered, staring down at the Doctors hand, intertwined with her own. “Distance can be painful, especially when the person you love is right there, but closed off to you.”

“_ Yeah. _We started to go on trips though - just the last one, it went a bit wrong. You sort of...had a good look at your past, it caused..problems.”

“Maybe we should have stayed...home.”

“Maybe,” the Doctor whispered. “Maybe not, but some days long past that trip, I’ve thought about you and...wished we hadn’t left that day.” 

“Regrets - I don’t like regrets they hurt and I don’t like things that hurt.”

“Me neither,” the Doctor said, squeezing her hand. “In time, over those days on that trip, I felt I was losing you again. I hate that feeling - that this time might be the last that I see you. It hurts too much ...but you walked away, and my hearts broke again. So the story doesn't have a happy ending - until now. Because now I've found you again. Piecing yourself back together.”

“So, I am a nice person who you love lots and lots and your hearts have been repeatedly broken by me?”

The Doctor sighed and gave a slight smile, “Missy....at what point did you get your memory back?

Missy smiled at the tool in her hand, short circuited from the electric overload that had shocked her. “Right after you talked about that time I pretended to burn to death and you..watched. I think we both had better days than that one. Why not simply...tell me the truth? Why sugar coat us?”

“The...truth?”

“Truth honey, why not?”

“Because….you seemed so innocent...so young and so far from the person who could burn worlds.”

“Oh. I see,” Missy said. “You like me better as a blank canvas..”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that at all,” the Doctor said.

“I know what you meant by all this - and it’s ok, it really is, because I do too, and you know that Theta.”

“Know ...what?”

Missy sighed and slipped her arms around the Doctor, shifting her position until the Doctor looked at her.

“Know that we have always been such a part of each other that the universe wouldn’t be right without us both in it. I love you, and I love you even more for protecting my hearts from the truth. Now are you going to sit there giving me that warm soppy look or kiss me, because otherwise I will and…”

The Doctor launched herself, holding Missy tightly in her arms as she kissed her deeply and passionately. Missy responded immediately, pulling the Doctor as close as possible, and roaming her hands all over her, happily taking in every new curve and angle of the body she had not yet explored. They pulled back, both smiling broadly at each other.

“So I was thinking, I park my super amazing TARDIS right here inside yours, and then we could hit the road together. No bio locks, no locking me up, just us. Whaddya say?”

“You want ...us to travel together?” The Doctor felt her hearts racing in hope and could only continue smiling at Missy.

“We just got a bit sidetracked with our plan, so yes, you and me, right now. Every star in the universe my dear Doctor,” she paused and spoke more quietly. “I’m ready now...how about you honey?”

“Always Missy,” she said, leaning forward with tears brimming in her eyes as she kissed Missy softly. “I've always been ready - I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”

“Then I am very glad that you never gave up,” Missy said, pulling the Doctor into her arms as she felt her own tears forming. 

They sat on the floor, full of emotion, in each others arms - surrounded by circuitry and cabling until the TARDIS took control of the situation and promptly dematerialised. They both looked up as the viewing screen revealed a planet unfamiliar to either of them.

Missy stood and offered a hand to the Doctor. They both remained, hand in hand as Missy opened the doors, stepping outside together to begin their journey under a breathtaking nebula.


End file.
